Off Wing Opinion

Late yesterday afternoon word leaked of an interesting story that a pair of companies had made a multi-billion offer to purchase the NHL lock, stock and barrel -- down to the last bag of pucks. This morning, it looks like the Toronto Star finally got all the details right about a 20-minute presentation Bain Capital Partners and Game Plan delivered to NHL owners on Tuesday in New York:

If it was owned by a single entity, the NHL would operate in a manner similar to a large corporation, owners were told.

Each team, like a division within the company, would begin the year with a set budget and act autonomously on personnel decisions.

The purchase would not be dependent on the NHL reaching an accord with the players, and a sale would not affect the status of the NHL Players' Association as the bargaining agent for players under U.S. and Canadian labour laws.

And the move, Bain and Game Plan said, would help bolster the league's revenue because all of the teams would work together to generate more local television, sponsorship and revenue instead of competing against one another.

The move would also cut down significantly on the league's operating costs.

Sounds like somebody at the league owed these guys a favor. Think about it: Come in and do a 20-minute presentation that helps Gary Bettman make a larger point, and in exchange, get a chance to indirectly market your services to some potential clients -- all very wealthy. And who knows, if and when an individual owner wants to sell, maybe they call these guys.

What does the NHL Commissioner get? Well, there's only one "major" professional sport in North America that's run as a sort of a single entity -- and that's MLS,

A league with a tidy salary cap. Sounds like somebody is just sending another message. Make a deal now, or you can't really tell where this is all ultimately headed.

To read more about Bain, a very interesting company, click here. To read more about Game Plan, LLC, and their role in bringing the Ottawa Senators out of bankruptcy, click here

Thanks to JZ Kumar for the early pointer.

UPDATE: This story is starting to get a lot more play, and I guess we shouldn't be surprised when an offer of $3 billion is on the table.

Some other thoughts: I really have a hard time thinking that this is a serious proposal, though there are some ways in which it plays against the owners. Implicit in the offer is the idea that the owners aren't working together enough when it comes to generating league-wide revenues -- something which bolsters the case for greater league-wide reveneue sharing.

Some more on the players involved here. Game Plan is owned by former New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Vataha. His co-equal at the firm is Bob Caporale. Click here for a profile Boston Magazine did on the pair back when they brokered the sale of the Boston Celtic in 2003.

Among their former clients is a name that will be familiar to many NHL fans: Former Pittsburgh Penguins and Hartford Whalers owner, Harold Baldwin -- who has been rumored for a while to be back in the market for an NHL team, most recently the Mighty Ducks, who were eventually sold for $75 million to an Anaheim-area businessman.

Back in the 1980s, Caporale and Vataha put together the money behind the USFL Boston (nee New Orleans, nee Portland) Breakers. Further, Caporale knows Baldwin from his Hartford days, when he did some legal work for the team.

The point man for Bain is Stephen Pagliuca, who also is part of the Celtics ownership team.

Like the Memphis Bengal at Sports Frog, I'd love to see this happen, but there isn't any way all 30 NHL owners (including Bill Wirtz in Chicago) would walk away all at once:

Well, I think I can safely say that the business buzz phrase "thinking outside of the box" might acutally apply in this instance. No chance in hell of going through, as getting 30 egos on board will be impossible, but a hearty congrats to the investors for the plan. And, for a minute, angry hockey fans everywhere can contemplate what it would be like to see NHL ownership walk away en masse. That brings a smile, if only for a moment.

One last angle that we need to consider: Perhaps Gary Bettman is also using the proposal to spur some movement inside ownership? After all, if some of the best money men in the world think that the NHL isn't living up to its financial potential, maybe they ought to be listening a little more closely to what the Commissioner has to say?

More later, if warranted.

UPDATE: Lots of stories now, but all are repeating previous details. Click here for the current Google Bews summary.

And this is from ESPN.com's Page 2:

I went to my go-to Harvard MBA colleague (and only NHL-fan friend) for his analysis. He summed it up:

"Allocating value on a franchise-by-franchise basis would be as civil as a Royal Rumble."

Indeed. At bottom, this whole deal is looking like a big win for the league -- even if it isn't anything other than a PR exercise. It's a big win for Bain and Game Plan too, as it just helps raise their profile around the sports world.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2005 at 12:36 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.